


Five Times Frank was a Dad

by FFFantasies



Category: Filthy Frank Show - Fandom
Genre: 5 Times, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 03:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FFFantasies/pseuds/FFFantasies
Summary: Frank collects children like Batman and somehow he's actually a better parent. At least he doesn't let his kids fight crime and almost die every other week. It's every other month thank you very much.





	Five Times Frank was a Dad

**Author's Note:**

> Based on conversations with Safari-Sacrifice

He notices the man after the fifth or sixth train ride, Shun usually doesn’t recognise faces that well but he’s seen this one more than a few times in the last month. The man always wears the same thing too so it’s easy to remember him; dirty blue shirt, black pants, glasses. Shun doesn’t know what to make of this man, he doesn’t look like the rich businessmen who pass through on the way to work and he doesn’t look like someone who does illegal shit. Those are usually the only people who pass through that often, they’re some of the only ones who can afford to.

Shun doesn’t know exactly how people travel on the trains, they never seem to pay with money but they’re always able to get on and he never can. And he’s tried, oh he’s tried, he’s tried slipping through the doors before the conductors close them, he’s tried walking in step with one of the passengers. This…place, realm? He’s heard people call it a realm before and he doesn’t know what that means but it’s not a bad place; there are lots of little animals around that he can catch and eat.

Sometimes he can even beg a few dollars off the people passing through and get something that he didn’t have to kill and half skin. There are shops here too, some of them are expensive but sometimes they have sales and he can get things cheap, sometimes he can get them even cheaper if they’re torn. Sure torn things aren’t as good but he prefers one tear over the dozens his own clothes usually have and right now Shun has enough money to get an old shirt and something warm to eat.

He notices the man today because the man is in the same store as him, arguing with one of the sale’s clerks over something and Shun hangs back, waits for them to finish. He doesn’t eavesdrop, he can’t because he doesn’t know the language, but he thinks the man wants something the store doesn’t carry anymore. Shun doesn’t really care and he looks at some of the nice clothes instead, there’s a bright red shirt with blobs of pink and it’s huge, even the small would be big on him, but he likes it. He definitely can’t afford it because it’s on the rack and it’s in the men’s section and he’s just a gangly, underfed kid but he imagines wearing it someday.

Then the sales clerk notices him in his dirty clothes and his thin face, looking at shirt and starts to say something, takes a step towards him too. Shun feels his stomach drop, it always does, and he gets ready to run because he always has to. He’s been chased out of places before, he’s had to steal shit before so of course he’s been chased out and it doesn’t even matter if he’s got money or not this time. His legs are tense and his eyes are darting between the clerk and the door, at the counter and all the things the clerk could throw at him.

“And now you’re threatening my kid? What the fuck is wrong with you?” the man shouts, in Japanese, and Shun freezes. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, it feels frozen too and he stops himself from looking around the store for another child even though he knows he’s the only other person in the whole place. So the man has to be talking about him but why? Why is the man calling Shun his kid? What’s his game?

“I didn’t touch him!” the clerk argues, switching to Japanese too and Shun doesn’t understand why they were speaking anything else. He stays there, watching the man’s face scrunch up and his lips smoothen out until they’re a neutral line and Shun feels the tensing in his legs again; the need to get out. He doesn’t think this man will hurt him, there’s no reason, but he still feels like the man is dangerous and about to do something

“Why do you think I came in here? I wanted to get clothes for my son, he fell on the way here and messed up his,” the man lies, outright lies and his walks over so quick Shun doesn’t get the chance to _think_ about running. A hand is on his shoulder in record time, holding him but not hurting him and he can’t run now, not without making a scene and he doesn’t understand what’s going on. The clerk seems just as confused but she looks like she’s ready to give up anyway and do whatever the man wants.

“My apologies sir, do you see anything you’d like?” the woman asks and the gentle squeeze of his shoulder has Shun glancing up at the man who has a grip on him, the one Shun recognizes. Everything else is blurry, like they always are when he’s too close, but he makes out a smile and he doesn’t think he’ll get in trouble if he picks something.

“This one?” he asks, reaching for the red shirt with the pink blobs he was looking at before, that he never thought he’d be able to get. The man nods and he takes it right off the rack and Shun has to repeat those words to himself, off the rack, because it’s so strange to think about. The man picks up a pair of shorts too, something khaki and Shun can’t figure out much else, then he’s being steered to the front of the store and the man is paying for the clothes.

He hears a number and immediately opens his mouth to stop the man, he can’t pay that back, he’s never had that much money before and he doesn’t think he ever will.

“Your total is twenty-four, ninety-nine, would you like a bag with that sir?”

The man doesn’t even blink, he hands over the money while Shun tries to figure out what’s going on and he doesn’t have a single idea. He’s been steered out the store by the hand on his shoulder and he’s been walks down the street away from the train station but still in sight.

“Who are your parents? Do you even have parents?” the strange man asks when they’re far enough away from the store and closer to the food places. Shuns stomach growls and he thinks about the money he has in the pocket of his tattered pants, he has more to spend on food now and it makes him so happy he can’t help smiling even though he’s still confused. He doesn’t know what a parent is, he’s heard people talk about it sometimes but he doesn’t know what those are.

“No,” he answers after he thinks about it for a while, if he doesn’t know what a parent is, then he probably doesn’t have one, “I have a hat.”

And he does, he made it out of reeds he found by a river bank and it’s great for when the sun is hot but the squirrels are moving around. He’s proud of the most recent hat he made, it’s pretty strong and he doesn’t think it’ll break apart like the last few, he’s really confident in it. Maybe the man would like to see his hat since he doesn’t have any parents?

“Do you live anywhere?”

Shun has to think about that one a little harder because he doesn’t live somewhere, he lives in lots of places depending on what’s happening. When it rains, he lives behind a store, in an alley where the top floors of the buildings are so close together there’s nearly no rain. When it’s hot, he can live out by the riverbank, he knows how to make a shelter for himself. When he can’t though, go to the alley or the riverbank, he lives in the train station; he sleeps on the benches at night and wanders up and down the platforms after he slips under the turnstile.

“I live in the train station sometimes, my name is Shun,” he adds because he thinks the man should know and they’re turning into one of the food places Shun would never go to. The food is good, very good from what he smells but it costs more than he can scrounge up most times and he doesn’t like looking at the prices.

“I’m Frank, I’ve seen you wandering around the station a couple times,” Frank explains as he takes them to one of the tables at the back, away from most of the people there. He pulls out a chair and Shun has to climb into it because he’s short, he hopes he’ll grow soon, it’d make climbing into trees easier but make ducking under the turnstile harder.

“Shun, do you want to live somewhere that’s not the train station?” Frank asks taking the seat opposite and Shun starts kicking his legs, he doesn’t know where the questions are going but doesn’t think anywhere bad. Frank doesn’t seem like a bad person and he bought Shun clothes, and he really wishes he could see Frank’s face properly but it wouldn’t be nice to walk away so he could see better.

“I wanna ride the train!” he admits, smiling again because wow, a train ride would be the coolest thing ever. He wants to ride the train, just once, even if it brings him back to the station and he gets stuck here for the rest of his life. It would be worth it to get on as a passenger, just once.

“Would you ride the train with me? Come live with me? I’ll feed you and get you clothes and whatever you need,” Frank promises and Shun doesn’t hear anything after ‘ride the train’. Well yes he does because food and clothes are important and Frank is offering both, no one has ever offered him anything before. No one’s ever done anything for him before and Shun feels like there’s a catch, a train ride and a place to live that’s probably nicer than a hard bench?

“Why?” he asks because it’s the only question he has, the only one he can think of at least. Why? Why him? What’s special about him?

“Because I don’t have a family either and you remind me of me, I don’t want to leave you here,” Frank answers him, serious the way a lot of people aren’t and that’s a good answer. If Shun met someone like him, maybe a younger him, he’d want to help them too because he’d want them to do better. Or maybe he’d help them because they’d understand, they wouldn’t need to ask why he did something, why he liked something, why he wanted something. Shun thinks he understands why Frank wants him to come live with him, and he thinks he understands a little bit about Frank too.

“Okay,” he answers after maybe too long and Shun wishes he could see Frank’s face better, he can tell the man is smiling but he would’ve liked to see it.

* * *

 

Sal doesn’t know what’s wrong this season, why it’s so hot, why his river isn’t back. He’s been walking up and down the river bank all day, his feet hurt and his tail is dragging in the dirt because he can’t lift it, he’s so tired. All the dry season has been too dry, too hot, his skin’s felt too tight for all of it and Sal’s been so tired. Even the frogs had been listless and slow, even when he kicked them they didn’t try to bite him and when the river went dry too, they all had to move.

The dry is over though, the rain finally came maybe a week ago and Sal’s been waiting for the river to come back with it. He knows it’s bad that river is still so dry, barely a trickle that’s too small for the frogs to swim in much less him but he has hope. He’s had enough hope to go walking along the dry river in the middle of the day even though he shouldn’t. He couldn’t go at night though because too many dangerous things were out at night and he wouldn’t have the current to save him.

“Nyess,” he groans when the light starts to fade and he still hasn’t found any part of the river he knows. Sure most of the river bed is muddy but he’s used to feet and feet of water rushing by, it’s a deep river, a nice strong one. Sal doesn’t understand and he’s scared. He can’t go to the places he goes to during the dry seasons, the watering holes are dangerous in the rainy season because more dangerous things live there.

During the dry season, he can only visit the watering holes because they’re too shallow for the dangerous things, it’s almost too shallow for him but he makes do. Usually the river is fine though, it drops a little but never enough to make him leave the way it did this season.

The light is nearly gone by the time he decides it’s time to turn around and go back to his section of the river, none of the dangerous things make it that far out because there isn’t any trees nearby. Sal’s section of the river is just river, no trees for a ways away and it’s steep, it’s hard to get down into the shallow pool at the bottom and the dangerous things don’t like moving out of the trees.

“What the fuck!”

Sal ducks behind the riverbank when he hears the person shouting, he doesn’t understand the words exactly but he can figure out what they mean. He peeks between the grass, waiting for the shouter to show up because they’re coming closer, the shouting is getting louder and louder.

“I fucking hate these realms,” the shouter grumbles as they get closer and then they’re there, right up close to the river bank but they don’t see Sal. And Sal, Sal doesn’t know what to make of this thing…person? Their legs are black and their top is blue but the arms are brown, like his hands, and their black hair isn’t covered up by a suit.

Sal doesn’t understand, the person looks like him, mostly, but he’s never seen anyone else like him before. He’s seen dangerous things with glinting eyes, he’s seen things with no arms and legs, ones with too many; they usually try to eat him. The frogs are just frogs, they aren’t very smart but they are big and sometimes they scare him. Sal has never seen anything like this person before and he doesn’t really know what to think, should he run before the person sees him? Should he stay quiet and still until they move on?

“What the hell?” the person shouts and Sal’s scrambling away from the riverbank, just in time to not be squished by the person falling over. He didn’t notice the huge thing sneaking up on them, one of the legless things with a flickering tongue and cold eyes, colder than the frogs and it’s huge. Sal’s never seen one this big before and is it because the river is dry? Are the bigger dangerous things coming out because the river is gone?

“Nyess!” he hisses, barring his teeth at the thing because he knows he can’t outrun one of these, they’re too fast but they can get scared. He’s never scared one but he knows they can get scared.

“Holy fuck!” the person yells when the legless thing slithers down onto the muddy riverbed, throwing up mud and water when it drops. It’s huge, a dirty brown and has eyes the colour of the sun when it’s burning hot and Sal doesn’t know if this one’s ever been scared in its whole life. He thinks about dropping his tail but he doesn’t think he’d be fast enough to run away before the thing realized his tail wasn’t the real thing.

Sal’s about to do it though, ready to drop and run, when something grabs him around the waist and jerks him back. At the same time, there’s a noise so loud he thinks his ears break and he falls on something soft. The world is chaos for a few terrible seconds and he wonders if he’s dead now, dead is strange but it’s not bad so he doesn’t think he hates it.

“-okay? Hey-okay?” the person is asking and their voice sounds far away even though Sal realizes the person is holding him. He tries to say something, coughs and whines when he can’t hear it properly, everything sounds stuffy and stopped up. Then he remembers the legless things and scrambles up, breaking out of the person’s arms and a few steps away. There’s some light and he can see well in the dark but he’s still confused, sure he’s not seeing the right things because the legless creature is right there, right next to them but it isn’t moving.

Sal doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t understand why his ears hurt and he doesn’t understand why the person grabbed him.

“Look at me,” the person says and Sal does, he sniffs and stops himself from pawing at his ear because that’d be weak and he can’t seem weak. Even if the person didn’t want to hurt him, there were lots of other things that did and he couldn’t risk them seeing him.

“Look at me, please,” the person repeats and Sal drops to his haunches, cocking his head as the person gets up in pieces, first one hands and knees, then knees and finally all the way up. The person is tall, very tall, but they don’t tower over Sal and he likes that, it makes him feel not as threatened.

“Are you okay?” the person asks, holding out a hand to Sal and he looks at it for a while before grabbing it, looking at the fingers, holding his own hand to it before using it to stand up all the way too. The person is still taller than him but not as tall anymore and that makes Sal feel safe almost, he likes this person. He isn’t sure how he can tell but he knows that the person is powerful and there’s something in their other hand that glints strangely in the little bit of light there is.

“Nyess,” Sal mumbles, hooking their hands together so the person can’t run away. Sal doesn’t want to be alone at night, not after the last dangerous legless thing and this person seems safe. This person grabbed him away from the legless thing and they’re asking if he’s okay, they should be safe.

“You’re up here because of the river?” the person asks and Sal doesn’t really know how he understands the person but he does and he doesn’t like what he hears. He knows other people use the river but he never knew people like this one existed, if someone like this is checking on the river, then there must be a problem.

“Nyess,” Sal sighs after thinking about lying but he can’t, not if it might mean finding out what’s wrong with his river. He’ll follow this person anywhere if they can help him with the river.

“I’m filthy Frank moth-I mean I’m Frank.”

* * *

 

“Please eat your breakfast.”

Shun doesn’t know whether it’s funny or disturbing that he already knows to duck as he walks into the kitchen but he doesn’t get hit in the face with a plastic spoon so he’ll say funny. Pink laughs high pitched and loud when Frank covers his face with both hands and smacks one chubby hand over Frank’s. Sal waves at him from on top of the fridge while he gets left over pizza from it and hops down before he gets hit with another plastic spoon. For a baby, Pink has incredible aim and likes to throw spoons at everyone.

“Pink Guy please,” Frank groans, pulling out another plastic spoon and handing it to Pink. The baby doesn’t like being fed except when he does and when he wants to be fed, he’ll start screaming until he is. No one has figured out how to tell beforehand and they’re used to the piercing screaming by now, mostly.

Shun still isn’t sure what to think about the newest member of their household, glancing at Sal eating crickets on top of the fridge, he isn’t sure what to think about Sal either. Frank is a lonely guy, Shun figured that out the first week he lived in the apartment. Frank likes to talk to himself because he got tired of living in silence a long time ago and he just forgot how to shut up. Frank likes to take care of things; he’s got a hamster and fish and plants and now he has three children and Shun isn’t sure if it qualifies as a problem yet.

Frank likes to take care of things but he loves taking care of people and Shun doesn’t think that could ever be a problem. Frank told him that he noticed him hanging around the train station a few times too many and decided to ask around about the dirty station kid and only decided to offer him a home when he found out he didn’t have one. Shun knows other people would be offended or something, maybe their pride would get in the way of accepting help because they’d see it as pity but he hadn’t cared.

Frank had bought him new clothes and food, Frank had treated him like a person, no like a kid. Shun had never been treated like a child before, Frank treated him like he deserved taking care of and even two years later it’s strange. Frank even took him to the tometrist to get his eyes checked and Frank had bought him glasses so he could see properly; he hadn’t even cared about the price.

Then a year later, Frank brought home a salamander boy, or a lycra boy, they still weren’t sure what exactly Sal was. Frank had been wandering through an abandoned realm, well mostly abandoned and found Sal and he brought home this random kid because he could. Shun doesn’t understand how he was the first one Frank ever took home, the man is a natural born care giver.

“Pink you need to eat,” Frank argues when the baby smashes his hands into the bubblegum flavoured noodles and he doesn’t really know where Frank got those. He also doesn’t really know where Frank got a literal pink baby but he doesn’t ask too many questions, not when the baby was crying and dirty and soaking wet from the rain. Frank had sent Shun to get towels and asked Sal to heat up some milk, milk which they only had because Sal liked to drink it with his crickets.

Pink Guy is mostly a nickname Frank uses because they don’t know any other name for him and the baby looks up when they call him. They don’t know how old he is either, or if he’s even human or if he’s half some animal like Sal, they can’t exactly take him to a doctor can they?

“Boss!” Pink coos, smacking Frank in the face and giggling when it leaves a pink handprint on his cheek. Boss is the only thing the baby knows how to say and it’s all he’ll say all day long if Frank leaves him alone, Pink is a demanding lil shit and needs to be able to see Frank or the screaming will start. Him being only able to say Boss doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to call Sal and Shun though, he has specific screams for each of them and even though he’s only been there for a few weeks, they both come running when he screams.

“Nyess,” Sal snickers from on top of the fridge when Frank gets matching handprints on his cheeks. Shun smiles and tosses a bottle of coke up for Sal who he likes even if he isn’t sure what to call the second newest addition to the household. He knows that most people would say brother or maybe cousin, something familial but Shun’s never had a family and he doesn’t know how he feels about them. The families he sees on tv never look like what he has with Frank and Sal and Pink but he doesn’t think anyone but a family would care about him like these people do.

“Boss!” Pink shrieks, scooping up some of the pink sauce and pressing the spoon to Frank’s lips. Shun supposed Frank would be the dad if he had to give everyone family roles, Frank is the dad because he takes care of all of them and because he doesn’t know how to cook anything other than ramen and pancakes. Shun would be the oldest child maybe, he’d be the cool older brother who knew all about everything because he’s older and that’s why. Sal is his little brother then, the little brother who tags along everywhere and wants to do what he does and looks up to him and Pink is.

….trying to feed Frank gummy noodles.

“Boss,” Pink whines until Frank opens his mouth and eats the noddles and Sal nearly falls off the fridge laughing. Shun reaches up absently and makes sure he doesn’t fall off and finishes his pizza, the bubblegum noodles tasted like shit the one time he tried them and Frank’s face tells him they still do. And Pink laughs his happy, burbling baby laughs at the face, then the little fuck starts eating his food happily, like he didn’t just spend the last however long refusing to eat.

Yeah Pink is the baby, the baby in the actual high chair Frank raced out of the apartment to buy because he didn’t realise you weren’t supposed to feed babies by having them sit in the kitchen sink. Frank’s a good dad, even if he is wiping his tongue on his sleeve and doing the weird tongue thing. Frank’s a good, weird dad.

* * *

 

Lemon doesn’t like to remember the time before Magic Man, he never liked the orphanage and he doesn’t like to remember ever being there. There were too many people and they were all so loud, they liked to make fun of his yellow hat and whenever he took it off, they’d make fun of his yellow hair. Sometimes they would be afraid of him, when he’d pace up and down the room and scream at anyone who came too close or tried to touch him. The orphanage wasn’t a good place and he doesn’t like to remember it.

Magic Man found him on the street the same day he ran away, well Lemon hadn’t mean to run away but the others were screaming too loud and they were all in a crowd and they were touching him and Lemon couldn’t stand it. He shoved his way out of the crowd and ran, he didn’t stop when they shouted after him, he didn’t stop even when he came to the busy roads. He just kept running and running until he ran into Magic Man.

To this day, Lemon has no idea why Magic Man took him in. He never said a word about it, never explained it and Lemon never asked because he never knew how to, it just wasn’t something he had the words for. Magic Man had lots of words though, he’d tell Lemon stories about his time in the war, about someone named Frank who he loved a lot. Sometimes Magic Man would ask him to leave the room and please not come back no matter what he heard and Lemon would do his best to do that.

He understands now that Magic Man was lonely, the same way Flower told him Frank was lonely. Lemon thinks maybe the two of them picked up homeless kids to help themselves be less lonely, maybe because of each other but Flower thinks the time is too off and Lemon doesn’t really know how old either of them are so he can’t count the years.

He understands why Magic Man left him with Frank too even though Lemon’s an adult who can take care of himself. There’s shit he needs to do and he doesn’t want Lemon to be lonely at home with nothing but the garden to take up his time so he gets left with Frank. Lemon can’t say he agrees because he can spend all day working on the garden but he does like being here so stalemate.

And now, he’s sitting on the kitchen counter while Frank washes his hat in the sink. Frank washes a lot of clothes in the sink; Sal’s hat, Flower’s shirt, his own shirt, and he says it’s because he doesn’t trust the washing machine to be careful with them. Safari told him it’s because Frank is afraid of the laundromat people and doesn’t like going down there unless he has a lot of clothes and someone with him.

Lemon can understand that, he doesn’t like loud people either, well except Pink and Salamander and Flower and Frank and Magic Man. They’re the exceptions because he likes them which is strange because he doesn’t usually like people and they don’t usually like him and it’s nice to be liked. It’s also nice to see his hat while it’s washing in the sink because he feels strange without it and he wants it back as soon as possible.

“Here,” Frank says, handing Lemon the blue shirt that he just washed and going back to scrubbing ravioli stains out of Flower’s shirt. Lemon likes Frank, he’s like Magic Man, quiet when he’s alone and caring in little ways, like right now. Lemon knows he shouldn’t pick at his hands, knows scratching at his knuckles won’t make his hat dry faster but he can’t help himself and his knuckles are bright red from how much he’s been scraping them. Frank noticed, Lemon knows he did, but he’d never say anything; instead he gives Lemon something else to do with his hands.

Frank’s good at taking care of other people, really good, and Lemon’s glad he’s here even if he doesn’t have a garden to talk to. Instead he has Frank’s family…his family? Lemon doesn’t, he doesn’t know if he’s part of what Frank has here but he wants to be. He likes being a part of the Frank’s videos and he likes listening to Pink make music, he even likes fighting frogs with Sal. And he, well he really likes Flower even if he can’t go on safaris with him, it’s enough that they have English 101 lessons together even though Lemon can’t really say most of the words.

“Marcus used to pick his skin,” Frank says after a while and his voice is quiet even if it can’t be smooth. Lemon looks up from the shirt he’s squeezing in his hands, it’ll definitely need ironing, and waits for Frank to continue because he usually does. Flower told Lemon that Frank’s used to speaking to himself and sometimes he doesn’t realise he’s doing it but he’s better about it now and he’ll at least explain what he’s talking about.

“Magic Man, Marcus, he used to pick at his hands too so I got him a pack of cards to fuck with instead,” Frank explains casually and Lemon thinks the only reason he’s talking about Magic Man is because no one else is around. Lemon’s heard about Frank enough from Magic to know that their relationship ended strange and Flower didn’t know Magic existed so he knows Frank didn’t want his new family to know about Magic. Lemon doesn’t blame Frank, he doesn’t think he can.

“He was shit at card tricks so we started calling him the Magic Man, it was a joke,” Frank adds like he needs to and Lemon notices the way his hands tremble a little as they wring out Flower’s shirt, “then he did some really cool shit and saved me and three other people and he really was the Magic Man.”

Lemon doesn’t say anything when Frank’s mouth twists into something ugly, he doesn’t need to see Frank’s face to know that. He twists the shirt in his hands and wonders why Magic Man can talk about Frank but Frank can’t talk about Magic Man, they’re both strange people but nice. Well maybe not always nice but nice in the ways that matter.

“Then he fucked up a dove trick and killed six pigeons,” and Frank’s back and Lemon’s glad to be here. He’s still glad to be here even when Sal and Pink drag him into the living room and onto their shoulders so they can unscrew the ceiling fan.

* * *

 

“Are those your sons?” a woman asks and Frank nearly drops his ravioli. He stares at her for a while and wonders what the fuck she’s on, he thought this was a nice park without any junkies or crazies hanging around. She doesn’t look like she’s either of those but who knows these days, maybe junkies wear bright pink lipstick and get dye jobs to hide their grey hair.

“Over there, are those your boy?” the woman repeats and Frank follows her pointing finger to where Sal and Safari are taking turns pushing Pink and swinging for themselves. Safari is bigger than Sal but Frank thinks it’s just because Sal is missing a tail right now and dressed in the green rain coat Frank got him. He still doesn’t know how old any of them are but he doesn’t think Safari is older than fifteen and Sal looks about twelve or thirteen. Pink is the hardest to judge because he’s a toddler-ish, he can’t speak English but he can sing little songs and he can walk but prefers to crawl a lot.  

He’s had all three of them for about a year now and that’s so strange, it’s been maybe three years since he picked up that dirty kid at the train station then two since he found the Salamander lycra and once since he found the Pink lycra. He doesn’t know why any of them were alone, they’re all pretty powerful and he knows that someday they’ll all be able to travel realms. His chest does a weird thing thinking about all of them grown up and wandering around the omniverse and he doesn’t think it’s heartburn, terror maybe.

“I take care of them,” he answer carefully because they’re his but he doesn’t think he’s their father. None of them treat him like a father at least, they trust him and they love him but they don’t look at him like a father figure; well he thinks, he has no idea what a father figure is like. Some nights he wakes up in a cold sweat, terrified that he’s screwing these kids up and will leave them worse than he found them if it’s even possible.

Safari is the oldest one, he never once called Frank anything but Frank. His name is Shun, Frank knows that, but Safari prefers to be called Safari because he plans on being an adventurer someday. Salamander’s never called him anything but Frank either, sometimes he calls him Boss like Pink but usually it’s just Frank. Frank’s pretty sure the only reason Pink calls him Boss is because the baby couldn’t say anything else for months and it just stuck even after he learned more words.

“Oh, are you their sitter?” the woman continues and Frank almost tells her where she can shove it before he remembers he’s on a children’s playground and he doesn’t want the cops called on him again. Cops would ask weird questions like ‘why do you have a glock in your pants?’ or ‘sir, this is the third time this month, what is wrong with you?’ and they were getting tired of his standard answer. So instead of telling her where she can shove it, he watches Sal push Pink in the little baby swing for a while.

They’re all brightly coloured easy to spot in their raincoats and he’s glad they all wore those without too much fuss. He’s dealt with a sick Salamander before and doesn’t want to deal with any of them getting sick again, he doesn’t try to figure out how an amphibian lycra can get a cold from some cold water because it just makes his head hurt. Sal’s raincoat was also the hardest one to find, no one really gave a shit about salamander prints on things and Sal refused to wear one with frogs on it even though he wears that frog hat all the time. Pink and Safari were easier, they just liked how colourful their coats were and Pink liked the hat that came with his.

“They all look very happy,” the woman tries again and Frank really has no idea what this woman’s problem is, “that’s my little Gloria over there on the slides.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the swings because he doesn’t give a shit about this weirdo woman’s shitty kid. Is this what soccer moms do when they don’t have kids to pick up from school or any bullshit to bake? They talk to random strangers on playgrounds and try to make random strangers care about their dumbass kids?

“She’s top of her class and takes ballet, her instructor says she’s one of the best he’s ever seen.”

Soccer moms needed more shit to do than talk about their shit kids.

“Sal and Saf drowned a cat in a barrel yesterday,” he offers instead because it’s not like his kids went to school or did anything normal, shit two of them weren’t even human. He found one in a train station between realms and waited a few trips to make sure the grubby, half-starved kid he kept seeing wasn’t someone’s child who just liked to play too close to the tracks. Another one he found in a deserted realm, hiding under a dry river bank and ready to dismember himself to maybe not get eaten by a huge fuck snake. The last one he found wrapped in a dirty towel on the side of the road in the pouring rain, whimpering and cold.

Frank’s kids aren’t anything close to normal and he loves them, despite and because of it. He might fuck up a little bit, like not knowing Sal dropped his tail sometimes just cause he wanted to or that Safari was allergic to strawberries or that Pink should wear shoes when he went outside but at least he never lied to them. He made sure they knew what he thought and how much he wanted them, he made sure they knew he loved them and was just doing his best. He didn’t think any of them faulted him for it.

“And Pink sang a song about killing yourself,” he adds because Pink’s song were getting better as he learned more words. Sure this new one was just ‘kill yourself’ over and over but it had a tune that Saf and Sal could play on the ukulele and ass flute respectively. Sure sometimes they weren’t all at the same point in the song but they tried and that was all that mattered, even if the neighbours lodged more noise complaints. Frank didn’t give a fuck, his kids were having fun.

“Wow Franku!” Safari yelled, sliding to a stop right in front of him with Pink held on his hip and Sal showed up a second or two after.

“Boss!” Pink laughed, clapping and reaching for him, “Pussy, Boss! Fuck Pussy, Boss!”

And Frank was not fighting back tears hearing his little Pink Guy say new words, especially something as beautiful as pussy. He sniffed sure but he wasn’t fucking crying, he’s not crying, nope.

“Fuck you, Boss!” Pink screeches and Saf winces but his huge smile stays right where it is and Sal jumps around behind them.

“Oh my god!” the soccer mom gasps and Frank can imagine her clutching her chest but he doesn’t have time for her, he’s reaching for Pink and Saf lets go willingly. Pink slaps Frank’s cheek and scrunches up his face for a few seconds before he turns to the soccer mom who’s probably having a minor heart attack.

“Fuck you, bitch,” Pink says very seriously and okay, maybe Frank’s crying a little, “kill yourself.”


End file.
